The present invention generally relates to office lighting; it particularly relates to providing and positioning sources of ambient lighting in an open office having office systems furniture.
Modular systems furniture are widely used to create open office arrangements that are both flexible and efficient. A modular office system will typically include partition walls for creating suitably private office spaces or other work areas. However, much more than a desk surrounded by partitions, a modern office furniture system provides a coordinated set of elements that can be aesthetically integrated into an appropriate layout of offices and connecting spaces which can include, at the option of the designer, a variety of working surfaces, counter tops, book shelves, storage cabinets, binders bins, and the like. As business needs change, the open office normally can be added to or reconfigured at a relatively modest cost.
However, the very flexibility in placing and configuring modular office systems furniture leads to problems in terms of the quality of the open office's ambient lighting environment. Conventional sources of ambient lighting are relatively inflexible in terms of their placement. Thus, a layout of modular offices and connecting areas optimized to meet particular business needs may produce a poor lighting environment, that is, an environment where the ambient lighting (as opposed to specific task lighting) is not well distributed in relation to the work spaces of the open office. For example, ambient light might be produced in a typical office by direct lighting fixtures, such as conventional 2 foot by 4 foot recessed parabolic troffers evenly distributed about an overhead ceiling surface. Modular offices placed between fixtures would likely be poorly lit as compared to modular office placed directly underneath a lighting fixture. Where the office ambient lighting is provided by indirect lighting fixtures, the situation is improved since indirect light tends to be more evenly distributed. Nonetheless, the quality of the lighting environment in the modular office will still depend to a large degree on the placement of the systems furniture in relation to the normally fixed placement of the sources of indirect lighting.
While moveable indirect lighting fixtures have been devised for use in open offices, such fixtures are very limited as to where they can be placed. Such existing moveable fixtures include floor standing indirect HID and fluorescent fixtures and indirect HID and fluorescent fixtures designed to simply rest on top of a furniture system's binder bin.
The above-mentioned deficiencies of conventional sources of ambient lighting in the open office environment can have a great impact on the quality of the work environment and employee efficiency. An adequate and even distribution of ambient lighting which does not produce glare plays an important role in preventing employee fatigue, eye strain, and other health problems related to poor lighting. The present invention overcomes these problems by making it possible to provide an open office with optimally distributed ambient lighting from indirect lighting sources. Specifically, the present invention provides a furniture integrated ambient lighting system that is fully configurable within the modular office furniture system for which it is designed. Using the furniture integrated ambient lighting system of the invention, sources of indirect light can be easily and interchangeably placed in a wide variety of locations on or about the modular office furniture system for providing an ambient light distribution that is specifically tailored to a particular modular office layout. The result is the efficient illumination of all work areas and other areas such as connecting walkways, meeting areas and the like. Moreover, the below described invention permits the ambient lighting of an open office to be easily changed with changes in the office configuration.
Thus, the ambient lighting system of the invention overcomes the present inflexibility of the above-described conventional direct and indirect lighting systems; it also provides a system that can be fully integrated into the furniture system and made to aesthetically compliment the system's structural elements. Furthermore, the elements of the lighting system are portable, and not architectural fixtures. Thus, ownership of the fixtures may be with the tenant who can move them from location to location and depreciate them over a shorter depreciation period.